NetSuite eyes Sage business

Cloud-based provider of financials / ERP software NetSuite (NYSE: N) is ramping up its channel recruitment as it looks to chip away at its on-premise rivals’ market share.

“In the past we have organically grown with partners that have understood the value of cloud, [but] now we’re really focused on the recruitment side, and what we’re saying is that channel now is very, very important,” NetSuite’s channel development director for EMEA, Martin Painter (pictured) told Channel Pro.

Despite a couple of significant customer wins, the firm has a significantly smaller share of the ERP/financials channel compared to Microsoft, SAP and Sage – it currently has around 50 channel partners in EMEA. Nevertheless, Painter maintains “the partners we are bringing on are a very different profile; they are larger.”

Meanwhile, the San Mateo-based vendor doesn’t shy away from publicly dismissing its rivals’ cloud offerings. Referring to the recent signing of two “big” Sage partners, Painter says: “[They] looked at what’s out there and said, ‘No, we need a pure cloud…We don’t want something that was historically installed, and has just been put on the cloud.’”

NetSuite says it is currently entrenched in talks with rival companies’ channel partners, who are seeking out cloud-based offerings, spurred on by increasing customer demand.

In particular, the firm is focusing on Sage partners, with the company not apparently scheduled to deliver a cloud-based offering to market until next year.

The latest UK firm to sign up to NetSuite’s Solution Provider Programme is a longstanding Sage partner Eureka Solutions. After partnering solely with the software vendor for eight years, the East Kilbride-based software and consulting firm opted to add NetSuite to its portfolio.

“We needed to have a cloud solution in our toolkit,” explains Alistair Livingstone, managing director of Eureka Solutions. “Sage does have a cloud offering coming out next year, but it doesn’t have one at the moment.”

Regardless, says, Livingstone, NetSuite would still figure “predominantly” in Eureka’s portfolio, enabling the firm to offer its customers ERP / financials, CRM, SuiteCommerce and supply chain solutions, all based in the cloud.

Paul Auffermann, managing director, NetSuite EMEA, calls the signing of Eureka “yet another positive signal of the growing desire for cloud computing across the business community”.